I have been involved in some sort of art crafting since my 50 in 50 Challenge in 2016. I have been dabbling in art journaling of some sort since.

DIY Postcard Swap

iHanna has been running her DIY Postcard Sway for ten years. Last fall, I wanted to join in, but I didn’t give myself enough time to create. I started on the postcards and worked on them, here and there. It was fun to just pull them out, look at all my saved epherema, and add paper, paint, stamping to them.

The Swap is the Second Week of May

I will get ten addresses from Hanna, and send out my cards. The rules are simple: Make ten homemade postcards, nothing bought. You can do whatever you want! ANYONE can make postcards, as Hanna says on her You Tube Channel:

Here are my Completed Cards

Yes, there are eleven postcards. A friend sent me a postcard and I decided to craft an extra postcard and send his way.

#realgainzriding

Kale Poland is a DecaMan ultra endurance person who became known to me through another ultra endurance friend, Wayne Kurtz. Kale began this challenge two years ago-ride outside in April to make real gains on your biking for the year. I saw some of his crazy posts toward the end of last April, decided I needed to drink the koolaid and join in this year. It was great to see everyone’s daily posts about getting out there in all the weather to ride.

Mother Nature was kind to me

I had decent weather for most of my rides. I saw folks who were riding in northern states riding in snow, hail, sleet-ugh! Kudos to them! I had some cold days but none of the weather I rode in was less than 38 degrees. What we all had in common was WIND.

Scheduling

The quarantine made it easier to ride. The days that I worked, my only responsibilities were to go to work, back to the apartment to sleep, and ride my bike. With everything closed there was no need to *find something to do* on my down time. The days I was home, we were under the shelter in place rules, and I didn’t go anywhere except to ride my bike.

Totals

Over 335 miles (the phone messed up a few times), and well on my 2020 goal of biking 2020 miles. It was fun (some of the days), and I am proud to say I completed the challenge.

Level One Fun

Just a fun activity: you are having a good time doing it, no worries, like skiing, or running in the mountains. Just a cool day in the outdoors, normal fun stuff.

Having fun at the Black Hills 100K.

Level Two Fun

Level Two Fun is being over your head and miserable. It really sucks being in the middle of it, but once it’s over (and didn’t turn into Level 3 Fun) it turns into a good story to be told. You kind of forget how badly it sucked.

My finish of the Wild Oak Trail 108 miler would be a good definition of Level Two Fun. An excerpt from my blog when the fun was Level Two teetering toward Level Three:

“Of course, I am getting colder and colder. I slip chemical handwarmers into my gloves, as I can’t feel my thumbs. But now my thighs are getting cold. My thighs never get cold, I can feel the cold on the outside. I’m getting genuinely concerned for my well being.”

“Everything hurt, mostly due I believe, to the calorie deficit, and the tense body contracted against the cold. I was so punch drunk from the sleep deprivation. I felt awful.”

Level Three Fun

It’s not fun when it’s happening, you still aren’t laughing about it afterwards, and it’s still miserable to discuss. Level Three fun could possibly involve search and rescue, or becoming the subject for a case study. You don’t want to go there!

You think you can’t encounter Level Three Fun in your backyard? Think again. My Type Three Fun happened in my local state park:

“The mud on the trail was shoe sucking awful, so I decided to go off-piste. I follow a creek bed downhill. But my path is short lived, as the creek goes off a precipice.

I scrambled around the drop off and crawl back up the creek bank. This is fun until some logs are blocking the creek, and I have to hike through the greenery beside the creek.

Stinging Nettles

I’m hiking through these plants, and realize my legs are on fire with little tiny stinging bites-all over! I realize I am covered in tiny bites! It feels like I am being bit by tiny bugs over and over again! It hurts enough that I want to cry!

Multi Flora Rose

I go up in the woods to escape the nettles. . This is where it all starts going south. I run into groves of multi flora rose bushes. Multi-flora rose is an invasive species, a perennial shrub. It can grown into impenetrable walls. Ask me. I tried to go through them.

I would follow a deer trail, which would then go through a thicket. I would try to find another way. I was frustrated and irritated. I was lost, yet I wasn’t. I was between the lake and the bridle trail. I was trying to get back to the trail, mud or not!! It was truly hideous. I was so irritated at myself, for getting stuck in this mess, for not bringing the compass (if I had the compass I could at least tell if I was wandering in circles). I tried to pretend this was good training for Barkley, good heat training. My legs were getting shredded. I had blood all over my legs.

I finally made it back to my vehicle. The legs are still warm and inflamed. It’s lucky I’m still on an antibiotic due to my teeth!”

That my friends, is Level Three Fun. It is now amusing to reread, a few years later, but it was never fun.

Empower

Empower: make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.

It seems the theme of my A to Z Blogging Challenge is swiftly changing from “Venture Outside of your Comfort Zone” to maybe tips on “Trying to keep your sh*t together in the pandemic” I am willing to go with that.

Part of the national anxiety is the fact that we really can’t control our lives right now. Especially Americans, which I guess would be the majority of my little readership, who have pretty much the freedom to do what we want, when we want. Now that has been *taken away* for most of us.

We also have this invisible virus which might be around us, or already in us that we can’t see or react to. We can’t control if or when we contract this illness that we don’t know much about.

How to Empower Yourself in April

Take control of items you know you can control. Like cleaning your house. Decluttering. This can give you a sense of accomplishment.

Switch off the news. You can hear about Covid-10 24/7 and that really can be upsetting. I turned off the constant Dow Jones update-the huge swings made me anxious. There’s nothing I can do about the state of the economy. It’s easier just to check in at the end of the trading day and get the news, good or bad.

Focus on the positive. For me, at least, in Ohio, spring is arriving. The greening of the landscape has begun. The daffodils are up!

April is the month of the Challenge. My second challenge for April is the

#RealGainzriding

I have a fair amount of kooky ultra endurance friends it suffices to say, in the realm of swim-bike-run. A new Facebook friend is Kale Poland, that I met via Wayne Kurtz. Kale had a challenge last year: Ride your bike every day in April.

Which could sound like no big deal, except Kale lives in Maine and there were many pics posted of some extreme weather and bikes. I was impressed.

I’m in for April. The premise is bike ten miles on road or five miles on trail, every day, no matter what the weather. As Kale says;

“It is not convenient. It is often not enjoyable in any way, but you jam it into your life to create discipline and fine-tune your time management and build mental fortitude . An unreal boost in fitness seems to be the byproduct of #realgainzriding. I have really been looking forward to this day… The Challenge starts NOW!
MUST RIDE OUTSIDE EVERY SINGLE DAY
ROAD MINIMUM-10 MILES or
OFFROAD MINIMUM- 5 miles
GPS or Photo Proof required daily. Use hashtag #realgainzriding ”

Day One and Day Two have been easy for me, as these are days off from work and the weather has been nice. I’m sure I will be be building the mental fortitude some day soon!

B is for Biking. I have become a reluctant yet enthusiastic biker after retiring from running.

I started on this idea of A to Z Challenge in February, long before our world was turned upside down with the onset of Covid-19. I am tempered with the idea of trying to keep my blogging challenge up, to keep some motivation going.

Why am I now enthusiastic for biking?

Visiting New Locations

The best part of biking is visiting new locations. I have seen areas of the country that I would have never traveled to if I was just running.

Going farther distances, faster

Riding a bike lets me cover more distance faster. I could not run seventy miles under twelve hours, I am able to do that on a bike.

Gentler on the body

Biking is a non-impact sport. It is easier on the knees and other parts of the body. It allows me to get a good work out without wiping me out physically.

New Challenges

Being on a bike opens up new challenges. Learning how to ride a bike on a trail for example. Or biking every day in April-I’ll explain that one tomorrow.

Learning new things

One of the reasons I never started biking earlier was I was not interested in learning about my bike. (News flash, I still am not interested.) HOWEVER, I have been, and still am, learning ALL ABOUT my bike, and how to fix it. Why? So I am self sufficient and won’t get stuck somewhere, miles from home with a broken bike.

Personal Class

My local bike shop offered a two day bike repair class in February, two sessions, two hours long. As I ended up being the only person in the class, it was awesome! I got to ask “all the dumb questions” that I could think of. I highly recommend attending a local bike shop maintenance class, even if it is only “how to change your bike tire”, you will learn a bunch.

This may be a good time to try and get on a bike again. Start slow and bike short distances. Expect your rear to be a bit sore-this too shall pass.